Adrian Dantley's number 4 is retired at EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City. His career as an NBA head coach may have been retired there on Sunday night
- Image by Argyleist via Flickr
The Denver Nuggets dropped a crucial Game 4 in Utah on Sunday night, but it was the way they lost that has this former contender looking dead in the water.
Denver’s bigs couldn’t make layups, their bench had no spark, and their defense made lazy rotations versus the Jazz for the third straight game. Not coincidentally, after going up 1-0 to start this opening round playoff series, the Nuggets have lost the last 3 games.
Worse, there is no bright horizon in site for Denver, as the heart of their precipitous decline from contender to first-round flop is a near complete lack of leadership.
George Karl spent the last month of the regular season undergoing chemotherapy treatment, and has been absent throughout the playoffs in recovery. His replacement, assistant coach Adrian Dantley, has been nothing more than a placeholder in that time. Dantley has failed to light a fire underneath these Nuggets, watching as they make serial mistakes on defense and bog down into one-dimensional stagnation on offense.
And where George was a master of in-game adjustments, Dantley is anything but.
The strength of Denver’s bench was utilized to perfection in the first 3/4 of the season by Karl, whose career has been predicated on his understanding of on-court chemistry & matchups. Now Denver’s B-team is so ineffective that the series may have been over before it began. Chris Andersen has been a defensive liability and absent on the offensive boards.  Ty Lawson has not come in as a change of pace alongside Chauncey Billups, where he took pressure off the aging All-Star guard all season.  Instead, Lawson has only come in when Billups racks up too many fouls.  What a waste of raw talent.
Carmelo Anthony has been the one bright spot offensively, and JR Smith has played beyond his NBA experience defensively.
The rest of the team, even Chauncey Billups, has turned in a sub-par postseason performance.
And so, with Game 5 in Denver on Wednesday night, the Nuggets will be up against a wall and in need of 3 consecutive wins to move on. Â If this team plays up to its potential, starting inside with increased effort and moving outside with improved shooting, Denver stands a very real chance of coming all the way back. Â They are no doubt the better team when playing at peak efficiency, but the Nuggets have been so careless, lazy & without leadership that the turnaround would have to be nothing short of monumental.
Game 5: Utah Jazz @ Denver Nuggets
Wednesday, April 28th on TNT & Altitude
